PUBLIC RELATIONS: DOES THE INDUSTRY NEED REGULATING

By

Kevin Moloney

Corporate Communication International Journal

 

INTRODUCTION

Despite the fact that public relations is a one billion pound industry in the United Kingdom with over 22,000 employees, research have proven that the public has a low opinion of it and as such its practitioners suffer some sort of low reputation. The industry is often criticized by the general public, as well as members of interest/pressure groups in the UK, for offending equality ideal (which is highly respected) through its involvement in democratic decision making, accurate information on buying and selling, and the workings of a neutral trust worthy mass media.

The consequences for this issue of low reputation amongst the general public is that it raises the questions about value systems, practice aspect (being a persuasive activity) and theoretical models of symmetric communication. The author of this article decided to ascertain the following: if there is a low opinion of the industry by the public, if the teachers, researchers and practitioners in the industry have a low reputation as a result of this, if what is taught, trained and researched in public relations ought to be revisited and finally proffer possible solutions.

RESEARCH 

The author hypothesised that the public relations industry in the UK and those connected with it, suffer from low reputation. Forty-two questionnaires were sent by postal survey to the Public Relations Educators Forum (PREF), statements were measured from the degree of agreement to disagreement and an example of the statements was if the educators felt various groups believed the industry had a low reputation. Thirty-two responses (76%) were gotten from the sixteen institutions under PREF.

The results revealed that 2/4 of the sample agreed that public relations has a bad reputation with the general public, a small majority agreed that managers, employers and business studies colleagues had the same notion about the industry. 3/4 were happy to use the P.R acronym when teaching or researching, or when used as department names or degrees. Nearly all agreed that student rate the discipline positively, 3/4 believed that persuasion is part of effective public relations and 1/2 agreed that two-way communication is over emphasised.

DISCUSSION

The public relations industry in the last 30yrs has grown and established itself as an independent sector in the UK, this is evident with the Queen appointing a communications secretary and honouring four public relation practitioners in 1998, but terms such as “to spin”, unflattering references by politicians, and hostility of the media gives an impression that the job of P.R is to paint a situation in a manner that is appealing even if it is not. While researches have shown that low reputation of the industry doesn’t affect students applying to study the discipline, the author observed from practical experience that some students suffer low self esteem and would rather say they are studying communication than P.R. He argued that the reason why business studies colleagues, marketers and advertisers have a little bit of regard for the profession may be as a result of how business studies view persuasive communication and a capitalists economy needs persuasion to boosts demand. On the other hand sociologists, political economists associate P.R negatively with emotions than reason, power or control rather than equality, propaganda rather than informed, rational discourse.

He and other agents argued that this issue of low reputation doesn’t seem to affect the 1 billion pound industry based on the fact that you do not need an entire public but a defined public, also that it might be the same attitude that the public has for other professionals such as lawyers, journalists, politicians but still use their services if need be. Another reason why the industry may not be affected is because of intergroup rivalry i.e. journalists may not like P.R as a group but deals with them individually when necessary.

He further argues that the issue of low reputation stems from the concern of the public about how P.R affects three institutions namely: democracy, market-oriented capitalist economy and free press. Through interference with equality by lobbying in a voting system and perception of being misled through persuasion amongst others. On the issue of groups or organisations perception of the industry, he argues that an organisation like Shell, would feel negatively about the P.R of environmental group Green peace, explaining it as a resource competition between interest and as such it is coloured by the reaction of the message recipient.

CONCLUSION

He advocates that the low reputation requires teaching attention and research scrutiny. Citing the need for P.R academicians to take a more critical view of the field; and called for the creation of an office for the regulation of public relations industry (OFFPR) as a possible tool for improving the industries reputation. The OFFPR should have a reform program that is independent, enforceable and responsible for the following:

·       Investigate the feasibility of P.R stories attached to media,

·     Require national report from all editorial media on how editorial independence is safeguarded, when they use P.R generated materials and make it in the best interest of political economy,

·   Possibly asking for annual audit report of their work benchmarked against declared professional standard.

Finally he said there is the need for more empirical research on the debates about the perception of low reputation of public relations in the United Kingdom.